Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to examine the deep conceptual underpinnings of trust and communication breakdowns via selected health inquiries into things that go wrong using evolutionary psychology. Design/methodology/approach – This paper explains how this is carried out, and...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate how, and the degree to which, superior and peer managers exerted pressure on middle managers' work cross‐culturally. Design/methodology/approach – Australian ( n =251) and Singaporean ( n =340) health managers, respectively of Anglo and...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate in an Anglo and a Confucian‐Asian nation how pressure is exerted on middle managers by their subordinate staff, and the managerial activities affected. Design/methodology/approach – In a survey, Australian ( n =251) and Singaporean ( n...

Purpose: Hospitals are constantly redeveloping to improve functioning and modernise the delivery of safe and high-quality care. In Australia, it is expected that different stakeholders have the opportunity to contribute to the design and planning of hospital redevelopment projects. The purpose...

Purpose: Much work about health reform and systems improvement in healthcare looks at shortcomings and universal problems facing health systems, but rarely are accomplishments dissected and analyzed internationally. The purpose of this paper is to address this knowledge gap by examining the...

Purpose: Health service effectiveness continues to be limited by misaligned objectives between policy makers and frontline clinicians. While capturing the discretion workers inevitably exercise, the concept of “street-level bureaucracy” has tended to artificially separate policy makers and...

Numerous past articles, many of which consist of idealised prescriptions for success or the occasional case study or practitioner's contribution, have commented on the role of hospital clinician‐managers. Prior work is circumscribed, however, in that it tends to be normative and a priori (how...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to draw on scientific models in conceptualising the evolutionary bases of contemporary behaviours, and make cross‐species comparisons, to account for male managerial activities in situ in health organizations. Design/methodology/approach – In the...